


Can't Exist Without You

by doctormissy



Series: What if...? [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: When the Master was about to kill Missy, the Doctor felt it, because they were still connected. After everything he's been through, he couldn't lose her too.In the end, he did not.





	Can't Exist Without You

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this little thing on Sunday cos I needed a fix-it and venting. So let's ignore canon together, aye?
> 
> If you're as much of a Best Enemies/Twissy trash as I am and have Tumblr, maybe join us in the [Best Enemies Network](https://thebestenemiesnet.tumblr.com/)? :)

She reached to his mind; the connection felt like tentacles circling him and embedding into him. ‘It’s time to stand _with_ the Doctor,’ she said to the Master previous to her with the clear intention for the Doctor to know.

  
_I will stand with you. I will. I am_ , she added. Her words were slow and clear. The telepathic link they shared was now more intense than ever. They allowed it to be, after centuries of torturous silence and seclusion. Perhaps it were millennia.

  
For a moment, she saw him. She saw the magnificent man standing on the artificial meadow made of artificial grass—no, not standing, running around and shooting at the Cyberman army—what a beautiful sight for her ancient eyes that was.

  
And for a moment, he saw her too. She turned her back to her past, leaving it—him—behind, bleeding, close to regenerating. She chose him. Her friend. An unexpected wave of warmth filled his chest, and he would swear she felt it too.

  
Only, her past did not turn away from her. He was still looking at her, burning a hole in her back with his fiery gaze and slowly stretching out a hand holding his laser screwdriver, ready to press the deadly button.

  
‘I will _never_ stand with the Doctor,’ and so on, and so forth. The Doctor realised what he was about to do. His eyes popped. A piece of his mind was petrified.

  
Missy! It was the only word he said. He screamed. Maybe even the Cybermen with their monkey brains caught the thought and stopped for a split second. Or was it time that came to a halt for the two of them?

  
He was terrified. Missy turned around without considering it twice, unfolding her umbrella and holding it before her body as a shield. As the laser pushed against it with terrible heat, she lurched; her feet felt unsteady, as did her consciousness. She exhaled, still trembling. The Master didn’t stop trying to kill her.

  
If it were a sloppily made umbrella from a Chinese factory, she would be dead notwithstanding her shield. She could thank gods for Gallifreyan fireproof cloth (how long has it been since she had even remembered their gods?). Nothing but uncomfortably hot hands where her skin touched the handle affected her.

  
_Thank you_ , she managed to say, _Doctor_.

  
The thing, of course, functioned not only as a shield. She fired a blast of sonic waves at her previous incarnation immediately after he stopped firing at her, and closed the lift’s door subsequently.

  
No, no, she wouldn’t end like this, by her own hand. He—or she, soon—will get out of it, but she would not if she had let him do it. If the Doctor had let him do it. And he would never, because everybody knew what she meant to him, right?

  
_Mistress_. The Doctor was screaming again. It was different, this time. She felt his bones vibrate and his heart pound like drums, but he was weak. In agony.

  
Missy stood up, staggering a little. She folded the brolly—it was in flames—and ran across the fake woods towards him. She would stand by his side, and die by his side if that was what was meant to be.

  
_Where I am is where I stand, and where I stand is where I fall._

  
She looked behind her shoulder once, but the Master was no longer there. His “stupid round face” still haunted her like an imprint on her eyelids, though. He will be the object of her nightmares for quite some time, she thought. He was dangerous. She was, once.

 

‘Doctor!’ she cried as she arrived at the battlefield. She had run. There was he, Theta, and his little human friend—no, not anymore, she was a friend inside the enemy and an enemy inside the friend, a Cyberman—and too many monsters in shiny armour. It didn’t take a genius mastermind to see the odds were on the side of the opponent. And yet...

  
The Doctor pressed the button on his screwdriver over and over again, and the thing—Bill, she was a girl—kept getting angry at her own kind. She was extraordinarily strong, for a human. (The Doctor always knew how to choose his _friends_.)

  
‘Behind you!’ shouted the Doctor, and Missy soniced the ground in time to destroy two Cybermen. But of course, she knew they were there. The mad look on the Doctor’s face and his even angrier thoughts gave them away.

  
‘I saw them, walnut.’ She shot some more of those evil things she once gave an army of to the Doctor as a birthday present; but they kept coming, more and more, like a flood. The Time Lords began to suffocate in the deluge of fire and smoke and bodies made of metal.

  
Missy was forced to run closer to him. She knew the ending was inevitable. He had said it himself, that he was probably going to die there, saving those children, and that she was going to die too, one day. _What would you die for?_ Another thought filled her mind. _It’s just kind_. Then, _Stand with me._

  
_For you. I would die for you. With you._ She knew the answer. It slipped her mind, and the Doctor captured it too. He gave her a long look in the eye. Simultaneously, he killed a few more Cybermen. It was all so out of character: the Doctor not so averse to weapons, killing—because it was the only way, necessary if they wanted to save all those people—raging, fighting a war once again. It was all the same as before. History was repeating itself. Only this time, one thing was distinguishably different: The Master would stand on the same side.

  
Missy took the Doctor’s hand in hers. She made a piece of turf explode with her sonic umbrella. (“It is much more practical than a screwdriver, Doctor. You will be very glad at least one of us thinks of our decisions carefully one day.”)

  
_I—_

  
_I know, Missy. It’s okay._

  
The Doctor interlaced his fingers with hers. It was a silly human gesture, but she was glad for any sign of closeness at the moment. If that was the last moment they would have together—she would kiss his face off if she could. She squeezed his hand. It was an anchor to the present.

  
There it was again. The tears. She had barely got used to the unusual emotional instability and strangely high levels of empathy (“Being a woman is one thing, but do you have _empathy_?”) of this body. She had barely acknowledged her transition, her change, her sincerity, her emotions. She had buried who she used to be, ready to become someone else, someone who was slumbering within her and someone long forgotten. And now—she wished she—they—had more time, somewhere deep inside.

  
‘So do I, Missy. But it’s the end,’ he replied to her thoughts. ‘We can finally see all the stars together, just like we’ve always wanted.’

  
‘Oh, don’t be so sentimental all of a sudden.’ She didn’t mean that. She was afraid.

  
The Doctor stunned another Cyberman, and killed one, too. ‘I am afraid too, you know. But it’s alright to be. It’s human.’ A minute smile crossed his exhausted face.

  
Normally, Missy would utter a bitter remark, or be offended at being accused of being human. This was in no way a normal day. Days. Weeks. Years. Decades.

  
_Without hope, without witness, without reward,_ she repeated those words. He was right about that, in a way. _Let’s save this stupid, stinking spaceship, my Doctor._

  
Missy aimed her umbrella at the ground beneath her; the Doctor did the same with his screwdriver. She freed her hand from his hold and brought it to his cheek. She ran a thumb over it, a smile forming on her own face. Then she leant in and pressed her lips to his in a kiss, soft at first and then deeper, more emotional, _human_. She was kissing the Doctor, and he was kissing her, just like the old days at the Academy when he was Theta and she was Koschei and they knew nothing about the world.

  
At that same moment, she released a full blast into the ground, and so did he. The gas, the fuel, the whole ground went up in the air in one bright, orange, burning explosion. It was a moment of final victory for them, full of rage and chaos and yet peaceful and beautiful.

  
They were close, four hearts beating as two, entwined and still kissing, until they were not. Until they fell down on the scorched ground, bodies collapsing together on a pile. Until they did not know which body was whose and whish thought was whose. Missy’s hand was on the Doctor’s hearts, and she held on to him. His coat was dirty, her hair messy, their eyes open.

  
They knew one thing: there were stars.

 

There were literal stars. Bill the Cyberman, who was no longer a Cyberman by some miracle, and her girl living in water had found the Time Lords and took them to the Doctor’s TARDIS. They had not needed the lifts anymore—it was a matter of rearranging atoms according to their wish. They wouldn’t leave them at mercy of fire and death and destruction. They had taken them where they belonged: to the depths of cosmos. Then they had left, together, hand in hand just like them, but Bill had left the Doctor tear.

  
_As long as there are tears, there is hope._

  
The Doctor came alive with a jolt, mumbling something about Sontarans. He was not surprised to be back. He was still needed in the universe. Somewhere, someone would always need him. His companions had reminded him of that. Them—and Missy. Missy, who opened her eyes a whole three minutes later than the Doctor, and gazed into the universe’s soul.

  
In that moment, she saw it all. The transfinite beauty of rebirth and transformation, of new stars and the old ones, of the unimaginable colours the blackness shone with.

  
The Doctor was sitting in the doorway with blue doors open ajar, and he was holding her tightly. He would never let go again. Neither would she. They had infinity at their feet.


End file.
